Music festivals tend to bring about endless collaborations and guests to the stage, leaving audience members eager to see if their favorite artists will enlist the help of any fellow musicians. During Mumford & Sons' headlining set at Bonnaroo on Saturday, the folk rockers invited special guests to join them in a cover of The Beatles' classic, "With A Little Help From My Friends."
The band sought help from their friends and band members in The War On Drugs, My Morning Jacket and Dawes along with celebrated actor Ed Helms, known for his portrayal of Andy Bernard in The Office. Helms manned the banjo during Mumford Staple, "Awake My Soul," notes Entertainment Weekly.
In May, Mumford & Sons unveiled its third LP following wildy popular 2009 LP Sigh No More and 2012 LP Babel, titled Wilder Mind, setting aside the banjos and exchanging them for electric guitars, having worked with Aaron Desner of The National and Arctic Monkey's producer James Ford, reports NME. In a video interview with friend and actor Jason Sudeikis, the group detailed its electrifying new album and the process it underwent to switch sounds. "On the last record, we were sort of on that path, and this feels like a continuation of that journey," bassist Ted Dwane said, before teasing "And, you know, the fourth record will be a hip-hop album."
"We grew up playing electric guitars and drum kits, electric basses and keyboards, so these are like our first instruments. I think we want to just keep trying different things, because if you just do the same thing again and again, it gets a bit boring. Amongst the four of us, and especially because we're all songwriters and all play different instruments, we want to keep changing things up. So, it's whether or not people come with us for that; but if they don't, I think we'll still do it," frontman Marcus Mumford added.
